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Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Greetings. I am here to review the movies you never admitted you don't want to see. So next time you're at a party and you have to fake you've seen movies to round off the edges*, let this be your guide.

INTERSTELLAR

This is typical Christopher Nolan stuff. It starts with a big idea and ends with an actor ejaculating all over himself about some nonsense nobody cares about. Nolan's Memento was a great piece of comedy because the whole time you have no idea it's just one long masturbation joke until the end with that expertly filmed bathroom shot of the main character looking at himself in the mirror. You realize, Oh! He's not squinting because he's trying to read his tattoos!

Nothing like a mirror to get in the mood.

Matthew McConaughey may have won an Oscar for the biopic of Dallas Cowboys' owner, Jerry Jones, in Dallas Buyers Club but we all know his best work was in a Lincoln commercial. He convinced me so thoroughly he was a douchebag and had no concept of the lines he was forced to read. He just reads them in a raspy voice and guesses as to what emotion to attach to them. Maybe he's brilliant.

Anyways, Interstellar is not what you think it is. It's a ghost movie that can never really decide on the metaphysical properties of ghosts. Are they supernatural? Are they echoes from a rip in space-time? Are they interdimensional beings just fucking with us? Nolan doesn't decide. He just flicks that little plot line into the story and bets on the fact that we, like rabid dogs, will worship his toes because of its complexity.

Interstellar was done before and it was done better. I've got four names for you. Tommy Lee Jones, Clint Eastwood, Donald Sutherland, and James Garner.

Republicans... IN SPACE

Motherfuckin' Space Cowboys, man. Space Cowboys was done without any of the pretension of Interstellar and all of the emotional impacts were delivered on the far less malleable face of Clint Eastwood.

Blah, blah, blah, Matthew McConaughey drives a Lincoln into an asteroid belt, warps to another planet, and sends one last text message to his daughter before the uncaring vacuum of space rips his face off his bones and turns his bones back into star stuff. The end.

STAR WARS VII: The Force Awakens

Before we begin here's a trigger alert: I do not care too much for Star Wars. Stop reading if you are tempted to commit violence upon my face.

Blue really accents Mars' more understated features.

I, like any other self-respecting American, am fascinated by space and the possibility of other worlds and the species that inhabit them so that we may exploit them for material gain, but apart from the visual aspect of Star Wars, I could never get into the story. There are good characters. There are good lines. I just don't get why Luke gave up on Leia just because she was his sister. Han Solo stared him down in a pissing contest and won. Hats off to Luke, though; I can't even pee in a public restroom.

I looked up piss shy and got this. If he can't pee while one man in vest rubs his shoulders and another stares at his ass, it must be because he's got an erection.

It's an interesting take J.J. Abraham's decided to go with for the Force Awakens. The story focuses on nothing in particular. It meanders through the daily life of a down-and-out failed writer as he travels from planet to planet looking for inspiration for his Great Tatooine Novel.

Along the way, he runs into women who try to help him but end up being related to him. He meets an older man named Handless Luke, they become lovers, but their relationship deteriorates over an imbalanced distribution of hand jobs.

Redesigned ewok.

Some guy walks around in a Darth Vader suit even though everyone knows the Jedi danced all over his body with a bunch of horny furries. Turns out the guy in the Darth Vader suit is just a metaphor for our unnamed protagonist's dark heart. It can only be defeated through love. But is he capable of such a force?

That force, my friends, awakens.

JURASSIC WORLD
Derpy, derpy, didn't you science folks think that maybe creating a dinosaur maybe wasn't so smart, maybe? Take that smarty-pants, evolutionists and global warmists.

That's the message of this movie. Science is big and cool and can do cool shit like make nuclear bombs and dinosaurs but when it all comes down to it, a snarky, smooth talking, pudgy white guy is smarter than all of science combined and it's all brawn over brains when a flock of fucked-up raptors is aiming for your nutsack. Aiming for your nutsack to cut it off with their big toe fang and eat it like chicken liver, if you didn't understand the danger.

There's a love story here, too. It's the tired old love story between a Hollywood production company and the car company that pays for this 120 minute commercial. Hey, now I know that when I'm being chased by Frankensteinasaur, only a Volvo has the steel frame that can save my eyeballs from popping out of my face while my skull is turning into a million little pieces of utter godlessness.

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Heathens and hippies will call it Turkey Day or Tofurkey Day. It is not called either of those things. It is called Turkey Day. There's a war on our dignity akin to the war on Xmas.

Thanksgiving comes from the ancient ritual literally translated as "Stuff Your Fat Face With These Grains. There is a famine coming and this may be the last chance to experience flavor."

When the first honkeys arrived in America, they appropriated the holiday and changed the name to "Thanksgiving," as in, "Thanks for dying so easily, other people here."

Today we're inundated with articles about surviving Thanksgiving and neat-o tips and tricks about making a non-traditional, vegan, Wiccan Thanksgiving dinner made out of bean sprouts and baby blood on Salon.com. This begs the question: How do we survive Thanksgiving?

Thanks, grandma.

Easy, go out and murder a goddamn turkey, stick it in the oven, and listen to your friends and family talk about how good burning flesh smells. Then you eat the goddamned turkey and you say to the turkey, "Thanks for dying so easily, you damn bird."

While we're on the subject, birds are straight from hell.

Just look at the birds pestering you for garbanzo beans and kombucha while you eat at Whole Foods. They are ragged, their eyes are lifeless, and their bird songs sound like the worst metal band you've ever heard. Anyone who tells me birds are animals has obviously never eaten one. Birds are as dumb as carrots right up to the moment you stuff its head in your mouth and bite it off. They have no idea what fate awaits them.

There was an article recently about what other countries think Americans eat on Thanksgiving. It was enjoyable because we get so much crap for not knowing about other cultures but all of the people he called were clueless about our holiday. They were even perturbed that some American called them in the dead of night to pester them about their ignorance.

I've got news for the world. This is America and we eat EVERYTHING on Thanksgiving.

A traditional American Thanksgiving.

Thank you, Cheetos. You taste great inside a turkey.

Just in case you run out of Cheetos, keep some in the soap dish. #SurvivingThanksgiving

In other news, my good friend Elizabeth submitted a design to Threadless that was accepted. Her design is an homage to the Citizen Kane of our generation, Dazed and Confused. Vote for it!

Monday, November 17, 2014

I've been sick. Every year, without fail, I'll get sick two to three times in October and November. I've started to plan for it. I've dubbed it, "Flu Season."

Here are a few things I'm sick and tired of people saying to me when I'm sick and tired.

7. Is somebody at work making fun of you? They're just jealous.

Jealous? Jealous? Jealous of what, mom? Jealous that I can grow a beard? Let me tell you one thing, mother, my beard isn't some kind of fashion choice and it isn't some kind of personal statement. My beard is there because I can't afford shaving gel. I can't even afford Barbasol and they sell that shit for a dollar at Target! But you know what really gets me about this beard, mom? It's genetic. And I've seen the hairless Vikings on dad's side of the family so I can't blame him.

I blame you.

6. Sit up; it helps the phlegm stay out of your breathing stuff.

First of all, my breathing stuff is fine. I had them checked recently. The doctor said all I had to do was stop snorting Coke. He said there was no reason a carbonated drink should be in my nose. I'm working on it.

Secondly, I'm not going to sit here and not snopes the shit out of this old wive's tale. Guess what? Snopes doesn't say a damn word about it. There isn't even a page. So I'm just going to lay down like a fucking gangster while you heat me up some more soup, MOM.

5. If you're so sick, you should be resting. Get off the computer.

Oh, yeah? Well, I won't be able to take care of my mental health issues if I don't finish this blog post so why don't you go back to the 80s where you grew up and play with your rocks and Q-tips and listen to your Depeche Mode 8 track?

4. You're really mad, aren't you?

Mom, sit down.

I'm working on some shit right now. A lot of stuff is going on in my life.

I've got the sniffles.

AND I GOT A MOM CONSTANTLY ON MY ASS ABOUT EVERYTHING.

3. Andrew, Andrew, calm down.

Don't tell me to be calm. Don't tell me to be calm.

Where's my soup?

2. It's right here. Nice and warm. I picked out all the chicken for you.

What if I wanted the chicken this time? Did you even think of asking me?

1. Andrew, be careful, you're spilling soup all over yourself.

LOOK. I'M LAYING DOWN LIKE A GANGSTER. I CAN'T AFFORD BARBASOL. OF COURSE SOME SOUP'S GOING TO STICK AROUND. NOW RUN TO THE LIQUOR STORE AND GET ME SOME GATORADE.

Sunday, November 2, 2014

Conspiracy theories. Everyone believes in at least one of them and believers will say, "I know conspiracy theories are nuts but this one, man, woooooo doggy, this one is real."

Let's look at the five times in history those dudes were right.

5. Santa Claus Doesn't Exist

Rumors swirled for years from older cousins and schoolyard bullies but it was hard to believe because, WHO ELSE HAS MOM'S HANDWRITING, KNOWS EXACTLY WHAT I WANT, AND LEAVES REINDEER SHIT ALL OVER MY CARPET?Santa, duh.
But it turns out the schoolyard bully was right about a lot of things. Santa's no exception.

I remember when I first found out Santa wasn't real. It was just a few years ago. I wished really hard for a brand new PlayStation and I was good all year. Then I got a letter in the mail from my dad that said, "Andrew, seriously. You have a job. You live in Texas. If you want a PlayStation, just buy one. You don't have to keep dropping hints to us over the phone and mentioning how good you are. Santa doesn't exist."

Then he hung up.

The world crumbled around me. I wanted to die. I shivered, naked, cold, and alone on my bathroom floor... without a PlayStation.

4. My neighbor, Jerry, is out to get me.
It started with the foot stomping all over the my ceiling. Jerry walks like he's got dicks for feet and the only thing that arouses them is banging them on carpet.

So he does it all night.

Then, out of nowhere, new neighbors come along and I'm positive their friends with Jerry. Their dog just barks like a maniac all night long while I'm just trying to sit alone in darkness and plot out a strategy to get Jerry out of the apartment.

Then I get a notice that my rent wasn't received. That's bullshit. Jerry took it out of the mailbox.

3. I'm still pretty pissed off about Santa.
You know, you live your whole life thinking one thing and then the very same people that spoon fed you this lie are the ones that tell you EVERYTHING YOU EVER KNEW IS A LIE.

What is it, dad? Is it also not true that I'm special and talented in every way? Then why don't I have a brand new PlayStation on the part of my apartment where there would be a fireplace if a fireplace was practical? Where's all the deer shit? Why do my cookies go uneaten?

2. Connect Santa and Jesus and... oh, shit.

IS IT TRUE? IS IT TRUE, DAD? IF SANTA (WHO GOES AROUND THE WORLD GIVING GIFTS TO ALL THE GOOD CHILDREN IN CELEBRATION OF THE GLORIOUS LIFE OF BELOVED LEADER JESUS CHRIST) IS FAKE THEN...

1. Dinosaurs are extinct.

When Jurassic Park came out fifty years ago, I was just a boy. Many of the school children would circle around me and ask me what I thought of Jurassic Park being that I was the only kid cool enough to have seen it before anyone else (I didn't tell them that I had to hold my mom's hand during the raptors in the kitchen scene because I scared my balls back into pre-puberty). Still, I was the cool kid.

I told them the graphics were great and one kid said, "Nuh-uh! They really used dinosaurs!"

Outwardly, I was like, "Bitch, please. You didn't even see the movie because you're so poor and you smell like your mom bathes you in her cigarettes, wine, and tears."

All the other kids laughed and I popped the collar on my jean jacket, turned my cap backwards, put on my sunglasses with neon frames, and strutted with the prettiest non-English speaking girl at the school, Elsa. All the kids laughed at the kid I made fun of because it was pretty much true that he smelled like cigarettes, wine, and tears but the tear smell could have been from his own.

Inside, I was dying. I knew he could have been right. I carried this inside me for years and years until yesterday, when I finally watched the extras on the Jurassic Park DVD. They didn't use dinosaurs.

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Horror is one of my favorite forms of fiction to read and write. Halloween is great for two reasons: It's the one episode of the year for the Simpsons that is guaranteed to be okay and everyone's talking horror.

Sunday, October 26, 2014

I had a dream last night that I was hanging with Snoop Dogg. He, for whatever reason, wanted to hang in my dump of an apartment in Texas of all places but all he did was update his Instagram. I was pretty stoked to be chilling with Snoop but I felt pretty frustrated that he was using all his time to take selfies, take pictures of his fingernail, take video of him dancing to whatever music we were listening to, and filming himself eating a fucking croissant (seriously).

Snoop's new character, Todd, who is white.

Snoop is awesome. I still listen to Doggy Style often. Many people can attest to that. Gz and Hustlas is one of my favorite songs. It just hits all the emotional highs and lows you want from a song about being a bad ass motherfucker. But, come on, Snoop. When you're in my dream, you don't get to sit around and Instagram.

Social media, as I've grown up with, is probably long gone. Nobody likes Facebook; it's full of twenty-somethings screaming LOOK AT ME and other twenty-somethings, who can't stop looking at people they hate, looking and grimacing. I and most people I know are guilty of both.

There are a few people I keep as "friends" just to see all the stupid shit they say. I have one friend who is constantly taking pictures of their feet in some cool place. Maybe it's an art project that will take years for me to understand but for now, at least, it's just a bunch of perfectly fine photos ruined by feet. So, yes, I can't stop looking at people I can't stand to look at. But this article will likely be posted on Facebook so I am also guilty of screaming to everyone to acknowledge that I can string a few words together and make them sound totally unlike a fart.

This is the point. We are very good at demanding attention without ever giving any. So many of my conversations start off with, "Did you see what I posted about blah, blah, blah?" If I'm being asked, I usually lie and nod my head and say, "Yeah, I read the first paragraph. I plan to read it later." Then I find out they're talking about their goddamned foot photo.

It's no longer very interesting. People with whom I agree on politics become insufferable rectal wrinkles online. People with whom I disagree have always been annoying and I pay more attention to them because they piss me off. I'm on an endless anger loop online and I don't think that I'm the only person becoming exhausted with it all.

But we are stuck. For people like me, who are separated from their families and old friends by states, social media, stale as it may be, is the only way to feel connected to them. It's the only way to feel like you see them every day. For every ten people I skip over, I am generally interested in one and that's enough to keep me logging in.

When Facebook goes the way of myspace, I doubt I'll sign up. I signed up for ello and it's already a ghost town. It took me awhile to sign up for Instagram, but I did. I still don't have snapchat because I have no fucking clue what it is and I'm sure I know nothing of what's coming next. It's already out there and some college kids are sending dick pics to each other with it. And in ten years all your Republican family members will join and the party will be over.

Saturday, October 18, 2014

"Why do you insist on calling it a headache when it is obviously a sub-frontal facial pain?" the doctor asked me. He pointed at his face."Why do you keep pointing at your dick, Dr. Dickhead?"

That is what I wish I had said in response to my doctor. Of course, the perfect comeback came while recounting the story to my family on the phone.

I thought about scheduling a follow-up appointment with the doctor only to construct the perfect setting to say that but I've found that the more I say it to myself, the less satisfied I'll be when saying it to its intended target.

Some people just don't get the backtalk they deserve and, since he's a doctor, he'll probably come up with a better comeback or he'll prescribe me nothing but suppositories for the rest of my life.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Yesterday, a few of the Weekly Weirdos were celebrating the release of Weekly Weird Monthly Totally Nubs Out For Spiced Ham. We're getting older now so celebrating consisted of giving everyone a copy of the printed out thing, drinking a beer, then going to Taco Bell and parting ways.

See, Taco Bell is having this promotion. If you buy this abhorrent thing

in a snack box, or whatever the hell they call it, you get a chance to win a Playstation 4. I'm not 15 anymore so this doesn't arouse me in the same way it used to. The only way I'm going to acquire a PS4 is winning it after a Taco Bell induced bout of diarrhea.

We all ordered our "food." I ordered the meal box from Hell. When we pulled up, the lady gives us a bag, all of our orders intact, but sans my box. I notice this the moment after she closes the window on me.

So I sit there in silence, staring ahead at the passing cars in front me and contemplating the meaning of my life. I'm not going to honk to get her attention. I decided to just sit there and wait for her to look at the security camera and say to her coworker, "This fucking bearded shithead must want extra ketchup or some shit."

After a few minutes of asking myself why there is no God, she finally reopens the window.

"Yes?" she asks, probably. I say probably because I wasn't paying attention to anything but my own lonely thoughts and the fact that what I was about to say next was in full view of my girlfriend and comrades who probably didn't know the depths of my pathetic nature.

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

There's something about Americans who insist on spelling words the British way. I believe that they believe it makes them appear more sophisticated but it really looks like a pathetic attempt to appear sophisticated.

The British Surrender at Yorktown.

To the people I know that do this, this is not a personal attack. This is just my eyes' plea for mercy. I cannot abide another 'whilst' when you mean to write 'while.' The color of the sky is blue, no need for a 'u'.

Declaring ourselves independent of unnecessary vowels.

There is one thing that I don't get, though. These Yankees never spell 'curb' the way the Brits do. The Brits spell it 'kerb.' It's not as sophisticated looking as 'favour' so it gets kicked to the curb. If you insist on adding unnecessary us to your words, you're going to have to use an awkward k and e.

I had an experience with the worst doctor I have ever been to. See, the doctor I originally had under my insurance plan was phenomenal. He was a straight up, no bullshit kind of dude. I can understand some level of condescension from a doctor; they are, after all, superior beings of light. But the doctor I got assigned to after Cool Doc left the practice has to be the biggest turd bag on the planet. I've been having sinus headaches (which I've had since I was a kid). I told him this and he goes on an on about Californians moving here and then complaining about allergies. Save it, doctor. I came here for your medical expertise, not your senior thesis on American migration patterns.

This was the kicker though. He asked, "Why do you think it's sinus headaches?" I answer because it's been bothering me so I looked things up and asked people. He says, "You can't accurately pinpoint things until you've had a formal evaluation, don't you know that?" To which I reply, "That's why I'm fucking here." The guy wore hair gel and stunk of whey protein. I'm going to continue going to him because I hated him so goddamn much and that is very amusing.

Thursday, October 2, 2014

If I never moved to Texas, I may have never become a fiction writer. Then again, I may have.

I tell people that the first year of living in Texas was the most depressing year of my life. I didn't know anyone in San Antonio and it was so sprawling that there was very little hope of meeting many people. I could have tried harder, yes, but I didn't.

It was a wonderful opportunity for growth to come out to Texas. I had a great job that enabled me to learn a ton of new skills I would have never learned. But I was the only employee for the grand majority of the time I was there and the grind of working alone and then going home to be alone started to turn me into a very emotional and lonely person. I have always been prone to depression and I think it is a genetic strain that runs through my family but I can say with total honesty that San Antonio was my lowest point. I'm very grateful for the opportunity I was given there. I learned a hell of a lot. I learned that you could be so depressed that your body physically hurts.

But I also learned how to write beyond amateurish poems. My catalog of poetry published before Texas still exists and is still searchable on the internet much to my horror. In fact, only recently have my stories begun to replace the poetry. I'm a huge fan of poetry but I will be the first to admit that I cannot write it. Sometimes I got lucky and wrote something worth saving. Most times I was not.

It was in times of depression that I started to explore absurdity. My poems were becoming more narrative. They were getting longer. They were turning into very short stories. I ran with it.

Sure, I'd been writing short stories long before I came to Texas. But I was aping other people. I was trying to be a voice that I couldn't write with. Bukowski is great but it became clear that I was not honest when I imitated him. It was only when I was totally alone with my thoughts that I became free to write bizarro/horror/absurd-weirdo stuff. I was no longer worried about appearing as a serious writer. My work ethic proved I was a serious writer but my work probably wouldn't be talked about at a party where people discussed The New Yorker and ate gluten free crackers.

I'm happy I moved to Texas and spent a year in the thresher. I've always been a writer but Texas helped me sound like myself.

Folks ask me if I'm ever moving back to California. The honest answer right now is, "I don't know." I love California. The Dodgers are my favorite sports team. I miss the beach. I grew from childhood into early-adulthood in California. But Texas has become a home. It could have killed me. I could have run back to the comforts and safety nets (social and financial) in California but I didn't.

I stayed in Texas, quit my job in San Antonio, and moved to Austin without the promise of employment. I lied on my apartment application saying that I was employed and made $800 a month, they didn't follow up on that information and paired me up with a meth addict to live with. After 7 days of unemployment I got hired at a bookstore and became a proud member of the working poor, paying minimums on my credit card debt just to be able to use them at the grocery store again when my paycheck money ran out. I picked up odd jobs to help make ends meet.

I made friends, I wrote a lot, I wrote advertorial blog posts for luxury watches I had never even seen in real life for $4 a post and wrote 5-10 a day until I couldn't bang my head against my desk any longer trying to figure out synonyms for luxurious. And still, I was constantly feeling the creditors' noose tighten around my neck.

So I got a part time job on top of my full time gig at the bookstore. And things finally started to fall in place. Now I'm back to one full time job but it's not at the bookstore.

It's very easy for a person to think they've accomplished nothing and I am prone to thinking that I'm worthless and have nothing to show for, but I've come out the other side. My relative security may slip out from under me at any moment and I know that I will be able to make something work. I already have made things work and it's gotten me to some great places.

I may have grown up in Southern California, but Texas made me figure out who the hell I was. It gave me the reason to pursue whatever I wanted to pursue. I escaped comfort for chaos and I ended up doing okay for myself.

Bret Easton Ellis wrote a piece on his idea that Millennials are Generation Wuss. Sometimes I agree with him. Sometimes I look at my social media accounts and want to gouge my eyeballs out in terror about my own generation's whiny and petty over-agonizing over very trivial "outrages." We jump from one outrage to the next and think that verbalizing outrage is enough. Sure. Sometimes I believe we are a vapid generation. But we graduated in a time of economic chaos, we were raised in a culture that told us college was the miracle water that would cure all of our ailments, we were raised in a culture (created by the generations before us) that told us we were the most important and now we're becoming adults and everything has crashed and burned. Much of our adult years were spent in a sharply divided country at constant war. Maybe we do whine too much but every person I know is hard working, juggling multiple commitments at once, and making things work. We don't have the luxury of Generation X negativity that is belied by the knowledge that the only reason to be negative is to be counter to reality.

As a child, I remember "news" stories and opinion pieces asking "Why is Generation X so lazy?" They turned out fine. Bret Easton Ellis has a nice life. Everything worked out okay, despite their perceived laziness. The same will be for the Millennials.

I look forward, in fact, to someday complaining about Generation Z's insistence on touching cow's assholes. Seriously, why do they do that?!

I'm still not where I want to be. There's a lot more struggling to get there. I may never get there but I am starting to realize that I am happy with things as they are. I will have more goals to replace goals that I've either given up on or attained. There will always be a new struggle. And there are plenty who have struggled far more than I ever have. I'm not saying I'm the boss-struggler here.

Struggling is real. Struggle is what makes life worth living. Struggling is how you find out who you are. There are no rules in life so do not box yourself in because of somebody else's perception of you or how you should be. Just go out and struggle, dammit.